LITMIR.BIZ

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in the rear of the barroom. Sam looked vaguely embarrassed but happy, and Amelia had a big smile on her face. Matt grinned and lifted his mug of beer in a salute to them.

      Sam said something to Amelia, who came up on her toes to give him a peck on the cheek. Then he walked over to join Matt at the bar.

      “Ready to go get something to eat?” Matt asked.

      “Yeah, I am. Fact of the matter is, I’m pretty hungry.”

      On the other side of the bar, Archie chuckled and said, “What’d I tell you?”

      Sam frowned. “What’s he talking about?”

      “Never mind,” Matt said. “We’re goin’ to Hernando’s.”

      “What’s that?”

      “Place with the best steaks in town.”

      “Sounds good,” Sam said. “Lead me to it.”

      Hernando’s turned out to be a narrow, hole-in-the-wall sort of place, but the smells that filled the air had the blood brothers licking their lips as soon as they went in. Hernando was a little fella with a lush, luxuriant mustache that curled up on the ends, and he greeted them with a big smile.

      There were only three tables in the café and two of them were occupied, so Matt and Sam grabbed the empty one while they had a chance and ordered steaks with all the trimmings. When Hernando brought the food, they found that it was as good as Archie had said it would be.

      Matt saw what the bartender meant about the spices, though. The steaks had a definite kick to them.

      Once they were finished with the meal, they paid Hernando and promised that they would be back before they left Arrowhead. “Come back in the morning for my huevos rancheros, señores,” he told them with a big smile. “The best you ever had!”

      “We’ll just have to see about that,” Matt said with a grin of his own.

      As they strolled back toward the hotel, Matt asked, “You want to stop at the saloon again for another drink?”

      Sam stifled a yawn. “Actually, I think I’d rather turn in. We rode quite a ways today.”

      “Yeah, I reckon you’d be tired, all right, after that long…ride.”

      “Damn it, Matt—”

      Matt dug an elbow into his blood brother’s ribs. “Take it easy. I’m just joshin’ you.”

      “Yeah, I know.”

      “And it could be that I’m just jealous. Amelia’s a mighty pretty girl after all, especially for a soiled dove.”

      “She’s just doing that for now, until she makes enough money to go to San Francisco.”

      “Oh. I see.”

      “You don’t believe her?”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      A rueful smile crept over Sam’s face. “Yeah, she was probably just telling me the same thing she tells everybody who goes with her. But maybe it was true. You never know.”

      “You sure don’t,” Matt agreed. “Anything can happen.” He pointed with his thumb. “Here’s the hotel.”

      They went inside, claimed their keys from the desk clerk, and headed up to the second floor. On the way, Matt told Sam about how Sheriff Flagg had posted sentries on the roof, as well as on top of the bank.

      “Good idea,” Sam agreed. “I hope Joshua Shade stays far away from this town, though.”

      “At least while we’re here,” Matt said. “You know how we love to avoid trouble.”

      Chapter 5

      The man on top of the hotel was named Charlie Cornwell, and he was having one hell of a time staying awake. It seemed like he had to yawn every few seconds, and each yawn just made him sleepier.

      He worked as a hostler at the livery stable and also as a part-time deputy for Sheriff Flagg, and he had put in almost a full day’s work before the sheriff came by the stable and told him to go home and take a nap because he was going to hold down the night shift on lookout duty at the hotel.

      “What lookout duty?” Charlie had asked, not having heard anything about it before that very moment, and the sheriff had explained that from now on, guards were going to be posted atop the hotel and the bank to keep an eye out for Joshua Shade and his gang…at least until Shade was caught, tried, and hanged like the no-account buzzard he was.

      Cyrus hadn’t given Charlie any choice in the matter, and since Charlie needed the money from the deputy job to go along with what he earned at the stable, he’d said sure. He had long since given up on the idea of ever making enough so that his wife would actually be happy, but he didn’t see any reason to make things worse than they already were.

      He wasn’t used to going to sleep at five in the afternoon, though, so he hadn’t really gotten much rest before going to the sheriff’s office to get a Winchester and a pocketful of shells, then climbing up here. So by midnight, it was all he could do to stay awake.

      The roof was flat, with a little wall about two feet high that ran all around it. Charlie figured that if he could sit down with his back propped against that wall, he could catch some quick shut-eye.

      But Sheriff Flagg had warned him specifically about that very thing. “Don’t you go sittin’ down and dozin’ off, Charlie,” he’d said. “Remember, the fate o’ the whole town could be in your hands.”

      Charlie sighed, yawned, and looked north and east. Down at the bank, on the other side of the street at the far end of the next block, Harlan Eggleston was watching to the south and west…although Charlie didn’t know what the hell Cyrus Flagg expected them to be able to see in the dark like this. A little moonlight spilled over the landscape, but not much.

      Anyway, as far as Charlie could remember, Joshua Shade and his gang always attacked a town in broad daylight. They weren’t going to be showing up here tonight. Still, he would do what Cyrus told him. He always did.

      The ladder that leaned against the back wall of the hotel rattled a little as someone started up it. Charlie turned toward it, frowning a little. The sheriff had told him that he’d be up here until four o’clock in the morning, when somebody would come to relieve him. It wasn’t anywhere close to four yet.

      But whoever was coming up the ladder called softly, “Hey, Charlie! You up there?” so it had to be somebody who knew him. Maybe Cyrus had changed his mind and was sending his relief early.

      That would be just fine with Charlie. He could still get home and get a few hours of sleep before he had to get up and go to work at the livery stable.

      Carrying the Winchester slanted across his chest, he walked over to the ladder and looked down. All he could see in the moonlight was a hat rising toward him as its wearer climbed the rungs.

      “Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “Who’s that?”

      “Sheriff sent me to take over for you,” the man replied without really answering the question, and Charlie was so glad to hear that, he didn’t really think about it. He just let the rifle hang at his side in his left hand and grinned.

      “I’m mighty glad to hear that,” he said as the man reached the top of the ladder. “I’m so sleepy I can barely keep my eyes open, and Cyrus said we have to stay alert. Here, lemme give you a hand.”

      He stepped closer as the man seemed to struggle a little getting over the wall around the edge of the roof. Charlie’s hand was out to help.

      But then the man looked up, revealing his face under the broad-brimmed hat, and Charlie realized he’d never seen the hombre before. He wasn’t from Arrowhead or one of the nearby ranches. Even in the dim light, Charlie could tell that. This fella had a bushy black beard and squinty eyes and didn’t

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